Introduction:
“How can you find, explore, and/or expand your passion?”
Explorations is the last unit of our junior year. We were challenged to discover a new topic that we didn’t know about or weren’t experienced in to expand our knowledge on something that addresses a 21st century skill. Since I’m in film, my focus was either on a style of filming, a film tutorial video, or certain types of films.
I chose to focus on observational documentaries. In the previous unit, we learned about documentaries, but our focus was expository documentaries. That is where you have many sit down subjects and they tell you their opinion on a topic and persuade you a certain way. You include have a lot of camera footage called b-roll to backup what the interviewees are saying. On the other hand, observational documentaries don’t have any talking head interviews. You just watch the videos as they’re happening, no interruption’s or second takes. More of a show don’t tell method. I find that this speaks to me way more than the expository mode, especially because at the end of the film, you’re able to make your own opinion about it, you’re able to think of what the message could be, because no one tells you.
Film
Here’s how my short observational film turned out:
*Will insert after it gets uploaded on YouTube*
Click to View my Slideshow! ⤴
I really valued this unit. I learned more about time management, and I loved following a passion of mine. I saw an observational documentary (Undercity) and it instantly struck. I had a fun time filming and creating throughout this unit! Although next year I’m switching to design, if I were to continue on with filming, I learned that I really love creating the observational mode of documentary films.
Music
For our Experimental Music Unit, we discovered how to use MIDI instruments and create our very own unique music through Pro Tools. I had so much fun throughout this process. We were able to switch between instruments, then from there we playing keys on a piano and they would sound like what ever instrument we chose.
Music has always been a key to my heart so learning how to create music by myself has been an amazing experience.